


Herding Cats

by Darth_Videtur



Series: Completely Unrelated Alternate Universes - A Compilation [9]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Adorable Assassination Attempts, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Moral Lessons, Mostly Fluff, Reincarnation, Restitution, Sith Shenanigans, The Force, literal fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-01 22:25:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13304607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darth_Videtur/pseuds/Darth_Videtur
Summary: The Force certainly has a sick sense of humor when it wants to teach a lesson, but at least Luke gets a friend out of the deal. Sort of.... if his new friend doesn't try to kill him first.





	Herding Cats

Herding Cats

 

Luke minded his business.

 

Luke always minded his business, but somehow that never stopped the Force from deciding it wanted to throw a wrench in his life when things actually started looking up.

 

And looking up, it was! Han and Leia were married now and living together in a nice apartment in Hanna City, Chandrila, the newest capital of the New Republic, with their infant son Ben. There was a peaceful lull in the fighting and campaigns with the fragments of the Empire still left. Leia was a senator again, helping to restore the galaxy’s balance, and Han had settled most of his scores with his old buddies, and Luke….

 

Luke had actually found a choice piece of land on which to build his future Jedi Temple. The plans had been drawn up, and already the architects were working quickly. In the meantime, Luke was getting the chance to travel with his new friend Lor San Tekka more and more often in search of Jedi artifacts and knowledge. He had even found a couple prospective students with the older man’s help.

 

All in all, not a bad time to live in the galaxy.

 

Of course, his constant traveling meant he had nowhere permanent to stay when he wasn’t on the move, because he was something of a legend and a celebrity rolled into one. The last thing he needed were groupies knowing where to find him.

 

So Luke varied his schedule and crashed at his sister’s apartment more than she expected, but she enjoyed the extra help with Ben, who was a handful already and clearly Force sensitive. He would probably make a good Jedi someday.

 

Truly, Luke was minding his own business the evening he found himself walking back to Leia’s apartment in a light rain, whistling to himself and feeling on top of the worlds.

 

That was when he heard it.

 

A pitiful, tiny little sound, nearly drowned out by the rain.

 

Luke paused midstep and tilted his head to listen. There it was again, over there, coming from that alleyway. He quickly changed directions and hurried over.

 

“Hello? Are you hurt?”

 

Being Luke, it didn’t occur to him that it might be a trap. He stepped into the mouth of the alley and peered down the dark passageway, hearing only the drumming of the rain on the different metals around him. He scanned the small windows and doorframes.

 

“Anybody here?”

 

Something tiny and scraggly tumbled out from behind the nearest dumpster and sprawled in a muddy puddle at his feet. A wretched little sound rose from it, and Luke instinctively swooped in, scooping the thing up.

 

He turned it over and over, and finally found a trembling face full of sharp needle teeth.

 

It was a cat. Well, a kitten. A feral one, from the looks of its fur and behaviors. It wriggled weakly in his hands for several seconds, tiny sharp claws snagging in the cuffs of his sleeves.

 

“Hey now, none of that!” Luke passed it from hand to hand until it stilled.

 

Luke stared down at the small feral cat in his hands, the wet, muddy fur matted and tangled from what looked like days of unsuccessful street living. The poor thing, a little more than a freshly-born kitten, mewled wretchedly up at him, but it didn't even possess the energy to struggle anymore. The fight had been knocked out of it. One ear looked partly chewed off, and he felt a twinge of pity for it. Nothing deserved a start in life like this. 

 

 He stared down into the half-closed, glazed golden eyes and sighed. "You shouldn't be out here in this, little guy. Girl? Doesn't matter, I guess." 

 

Luke looked around the alleyway, for perhaps the kit had simply wandered off from its mother. Nothing stirred by the dumpster. 

 

The little cat made a soft sound in his hands. Luke realized it didn't have the strength to turn its head from the falling rain, and large drops were splattering onto the narrow face and bent whiskers. "Okay, shhh," he whispered and pulled the animal partway under his jacket. He looked around again as he shielded it. Still no sign of a mother. He couldn’t just leave it, it probably wouldn’t last the night like this.

 

"I'll ... I'll take care of you, little guy. At least for tonight." 

 

Han was gonna kill him when he brought this scrap of wet fur home. But what could he do when a Jedi's compassion stirred in his heart, and no one else was around?

 

He sighed and arranged the jacket around the cat until only the slightly crooked tail poked out. It was so dirty he couldn’t even tell what color it was. It needed a bath, and some warm blue milk, and a brushing.

 

When he made it back to his sister and brother-in-law’s house, he was proven mostly right. Han didn’t burst with joy when Luke presented the lump of hissing fur (that was putting it mildly), but at least he didn’t outright deny Luke and his new companion entry, either. Leia, on the other hand, instantly took over with her typical no-nonsense attitude, ordering the two men around the apartment until she had a sink-bath drawn, a box with a blanket, hot water bottle, and clock in it, and one of Ben’s toys hastily washed and converted into a cat’s toy instead.

 

Luke hovered over her shoulder as she bathed the tiny thing. Rings of mud spread out in widening circles around the kitten, but at last the true color was shining through.

 

“Red,” Luke grinned. “It’s very red.”

 

And it was. The kitten’s fur was a brilliant ginger color, with tiny silver paws and a splash of silver over its nose, which made it look a little large on its small face, but Luke thought it was charming. The whiskers still stood up crooked from the small snout, but Leia said she thought they would straighten out over time. The little golden eyes were still glazed with cold and misery, but Leia persisted through the tiny squeaking protests until every last bit of mud and dirt had been squeezed and rubbed and wicked away.

 

She tumbled the kitten gently into a fresh towel and rubbed it until the fur was only damp, and then she set Luke to brushing.

 

It was a delicate procedure, because the fur was so badly matted, but Luke had nowhere else to be, no one else to see, so he settled in on their living room couch with his task and listened to Leia and Han playing with Ben.

 

Sometimes…. Sometimes he wondered what it would be like to settle down with a family and just… live.

 

The kitten mewled under his hand when the brush snagged on his tail. He looked down and was confronted with a miniscule but no less deadly glare. Luke chuckled, he couldn’t help it. “I’m sorry, little guy….”

 

He tilted his head. “Little guy?”

 

The kitten gave him a look as if to say: Don’t you dare.

 

Luke laughed at himself. Kittens didn’t think like that. He lifted the tiny body and grasped the crooked tail with a gentle hand. Leia said it looked like it had been broken at least once before, so he was extra cautious not to bend it hard or tug on it. 

 

He carefully looked underneath and smiled. “Okay, I think you’re a little guy, all right.”

 

The kitten growled fiercely until he placed it back in his warm lap. It curled all four silver paws underneath its trembling little body and kept glaring at him. If Luke didn’t know any better, it looked… indignant. Like it was going to arch one of those tiny eyebrows and demand that he apologize.

 

“Sorry, Your Highness,” he whispered teasingly. The golden eyes widened. “Well, if you weren’t acting like royalty, I wouldn’t call you that.”

 

They came to an agreement of sorts eventually. Luke groomed the kitten, and the kitten soaked up his warmth and fitfully napped on his right thigh. The whole time, Luke listened to Leia and Han and Ben, and the warm laughter and gentle chatter only made the loneliness in his heart bigger.

 

He was a Jedi… Jedi were destined to be on their own in a galaxy that needed them, but….

 

Did he have to be _entirely_ alone?

 

He opened himself to the flow of the Force around him, and found the answer in a soft scratch between battered ears.

 

 _No,_ the Force whispered.

Besides, maybe someone else needed him…. He looked down at the tiny ball of fluff, slowly drying out and becoming only a deeper, richer red color in the process. Understanding slowly dawned. “You need someone, little guy.”

 

The kitten turned his head up, and Luke swore the eyes flashed with a deep intelligence, almost human in the despondency and loneliness that reflected back up at him. Fear too, and uncertainty.

 

“Well, if you’re coming with me, you’ve got to have a name,” Luke whispered and reached to tickle under the soft chin. The kitten nipped him instead. “Ow! Okay, okay! Honestly.” He moved his hand back up top and stroked along the delicate head and pinched shoulders.

 

He opened his mind to the Force again as he pondered, and the name came so suddenly to him, out of nowhere.

 

“How about Sheev?”

 

The tiny body quivered. Luke made a face. “Sheev? Where have I heard that before? It sounds…. It sounds sorta…” Naboo?

 

He liked that thought. And he liked the name the more he rolled it around in his mouth. Something Naboo. Something from his mother’s planet, that he could carry with him. Surely, at some point in time, a Jedi had taken care of an animal companion before, and if not, well, who was to say it was a bad idea? He was the Jedi Master now.

 

If he wanted a pet, he was going to have a pet.

 

“Well, Sheev,” he whispered, reaching for the bottle of warmed blue milk Leia had set on the armrest earlier. “Let’s get you some supper.”

 

He could have sworn the kitten was glaring at him the entire time he fed him.

 

Luke had a bad feeling about bed time.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Okay, a mix of new and EU, I’m going off the assumption that Luke didn’t know Palpatine’s first name, like most of the galaxy at the time. The Force gave him a nudge in naming his kitten-that-isn't-a-normal-kitten. xD  
> 2\. This is unashamed fluff. Figurative and literal. I need fluff.  
> 3\. The Force has a sense of humor as it tries to teach lessons to everyone.  
> 4\. Let me know what you think. And also feel free to leave suggestions as to what trouble you might want to see the Emperor-reincarnated-in-cat-form get into. :D


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